I was trying to install Mandrake (6.1 i think) the other day and it stopped mid-way through the file copy process - i took the CD out and noticed it had cracked a little in the center. So the CD doesnt work anymore. The thing is, it was a free CD on a magazine (in the uk) a few years back - the only reason i got it was because i wanted to try out linux and have only recently got a system worth trying it on. I want to try it again, but i dont really want to pay a lot for an O/S i just want to experiment with on my system. So i was wondering - any free linux distributions, or very cheap?! I do have another version on another magazine cover cd (slakware i think) but the CD is from 1994(!) so i dont think that would be worth trying :) Thanks Al

just download it for free; make sure you have high speed internet connection: www.freebsd.org www.suse.org www.redhat.com etc. - its all free.

Or check out http://www.linxiso.org. Lawrence

As a side note, I would personally not recomend an old version of Slackware. Slackware is not the most user-friendly of the distros and is generally intened for hard-core UNIX geeks. Even the latest version still uses a text based install. While there is centainly nothing wrong with this, it can be a bit harsh on new Linux users. Also, Slackware does not use RPMs (RedHat Package Manager) which can lead to some issues with downloaded software. I've heard good things about RedHat (my choice) and Mandrake. I agree that linuxiso.org is an excellent site. It has a large variety of distro ISOs for download.

www.ebay.com

Older SuSE: 7.1,7.2,7.3 are excellent distros and very user friendly. Stay away from 8.0